You could hear a pin drop. Jersey and Angel looked at one another with big eyes, their mouths wide opened as they realized their perception of things had been flawed. Cordelia had a whimsical smile on her face, she looked relaxed and matter-of-fact. She leaned back on the sofa and sipped her wine, as if she didn't have a care in the world.
Cordelia didn't have a care in the world, not that day. They were hanging at Angel’s house, it was a big house, just built from the ground up. To them the house was more like a mansion. Even to Angel. It was a three-story colonial style house, with plenty windows, and as many bathrooms as there were bedrooms. The sat in the living room listening to music, sipping wine and eating cheese. Jersey was seated on one end of the sofa, Angel was seated on the opposite side and Cordelia sat in between on the floor.
They were celebrating, Cordelia finally landed a regular job after four years. She never counted herself out, others did—counted her out. Some considered her a washed-up pill popper, but she was well aware that wasn’t the case. She confessed she had worried about being unemployed so long, year after year, but she never lost hope. And although she had to put writing on the back burner, she was glad to have a new opportunity. She wore a hat that day and she tipped it as she lifted her glass.
"I'm an Administrative Assistant at New Bethill Times and It's not far from me putting pen to the pad," Cordelia said. "Thanks for the idea, Jersey."
“I’m glad it worked out,” Angel said.
“Yes, Yes, but I didn't do anything.” Jersey said, “I'm so glad you're back at work. You did that Delie--you made that work. You always do, when the pressure is on, and your back is against the wall. Here’s to income.”
“Here ye…here ye,” Angel agreed.
“I have insurance too." Cordelia said. "I just hope it's better than Obamacare, because yah'll know I need my medication."
They all knew it wasn't funny, but they laughed. It was good news Cordelia had a job, and they were happy.
“Thank God," Angel said with a smile, sitting her wine glass on the table, "Speaking of medication, guess who I saw the other day?"
“Who?" Jersey and Cordelia asked almost in unison.
“Brock Davis,” Angel said. Her faced was frowned as if the very name was disgusting.
Jersey glanced at Cordelia with nervous eyes. Whenever the subject of Brock Davis surfaced it made Jersey nervous. It was a taboo subject in her mind.
Cordelia huffed and flashed an gleeful gaze on her face, “I saw him a few years ago, he was thin as a rail. Damon told me he was strung out real bad. Crack kills.”
“Yeah it does," Jersey said.
"He looked real bad," Angel continued, "he asked about you Delia.”
“I hope you told him to keep it moving.”
"I did.” Angel said putting her glass down. “I told him you were happy and soon to be married. He gave me a sad look. I felt bad for him--Real bad."
“I had such a crush on Brock,” Cordelia confessed, and she shook her head side to side in disbelief. She was only fifteen, and didn't know any better back then. Over the years she had rarely talked about Brock Davis, and she never once admitted to her sisters, that she had a crush on him. He was 10-years older than Cordelia, and when she was a teenager, he was a grown man.
“Thanks to Mommy, I dodged that bullet.”
“What!” Jersey sat up with surprise. “I never knew you had a crush on Brock—I thought you hated him like the rest of us."
"Hate?" Cordelia said, "that's such a strong word."
Jersey thought about the word for a second, they all were supposed to hate Brock, “That is a strong word—maybe I didn’t hate him, as much as I disliked him. He always gave me the creeps, even before that night," Jersey said.
“He gives me the creeps now, but back then he didn’t.”
“I never liked him," Angel said.
"When Mommy told me what he’d did to you I stayed away from him,” Jersey said.
“Me too,”Angel said.
“Mommy told people he raped me,” Cordelia said, “but that wasn’t true.”
“It was more like, molested you because you were so young,” Jersey said. “I always knew that rape was extreme. Mommy said that because she wanted us to stay away from him, and she didn’t want nobody to like us,” Jersey said.
“I always thought Brock raped you,” Angel said. “I still can’t stand him.”
“He didn’t rape me, that’s for sure. But, Mommy was right about him, he is slimy. How come the slimy ones are the ones to live long,” Cordelia said.
Angel shrugged her shoulders, and sipped her wine, “Now knowing you had a crush on him, I guess we all hated him for no good reason. But I still don’t like him.”
“Me either,” Cordelia agreed. She remembered the blood, turned her lips up, frowned her face like Lilly King would do, and got real serious. "I haven’t liked him since the night of the miscarriage and I remember that day like it was yesterday. It's the constant reminder, some motherfuckers, ain't shit."
September 24, 1983. It was a lazy Saturday morning. Lilly King sat in the living room drinking a colt 45, listening to Al Greene on the record player. Her favorite chair was next to the window, and she sat dividing her gaze between the television and outside. Other kids where outside playing. Damon was outside, but her girls were in the kitchen, at the table waiting for lunch. They always sat crowded around the table with glasses and spoons, talking and waiting for the next meal.
Lilly had just taken a nice swig of beer and was just about to get up and make tuna fish sandwiches when she heard Cordelia cry out for her.
“Ma!” Cordelia called from the other room.
Lilly sat straight up and listened. It sounded like a shrill cry, Lilly wasn't certain. She had a way of over reacting when it came to her children, so between Al Greene and another sip of Colt 45 she waited to double check. The call came a second time.
“Ma!”
Cordelia for sure. This time Lilly got out her seat. Cordelia called from the bathroom, and it sounded serious. Lilly got up and went down the hallway. They lived in a two-bedroom apartment with a large front room that Lilly used as a bedroom for the girls. Damon’s room was way in the back, off the kitchen. Lilly’s bedroom was right across from the bathroom.
When Lilly reached the bathroom, she stopped at the door. She could hear Cordelia whimpering.
“Delia?” Lilly said through the door.
“Something is wrong, Mom,” Cordelia said.
Her voice sounded muffled, but Lilly could tell she was crying.
“Open the door,” Lilly said.
She turned the knob. It was locked but she heard Cordelia moving for the door. Jersey and Angel stood in the kitchen next to the stove. Lilly suspected they knew what was going on, but she didn't ask them--she didn't have to she could tell by their faces. She just prayed it wasn’t serious.
Cordelia opened the door very slow. Lilly couldn't wait, she squeezed inside the cracked door and stepped inside the bathroom. The white-tiled bathroom floor was freshly waxed and sprinkled with blood clots so thick they looked like pieces of cinnamon candy. Lilly looked at her daughter and followed the trial of blood drops to the toilet. Cordelia sat on the edge of the tub, fresh blood trickled down her legs.
“Stop crying,” Lilly said. “You have your period?”
Cordelia shrugged, “I don’t know what it is happening to me,” she tried to stop crying, but couldn't control the whimpers.
Lilly glanced into the toilet. Deep red water surrounded a thick mass of blood. It looked like a roll of toilet paper. Lilly stared with a stern face. Her solid frame leaned down. With squinted eyes, she moved her head about and examined the contents in the bowl. The mass that bobbled about had been a living creature. Lilly never ask about the father of the poor lifeless mound, she suspected Brock Davis. After a long hesitation she turned and stared at her daughter.
“Delia,” she said. Her voice was calm, “Did you know you were having a baby?”
“No,” Cordelia mumbled between sobs. She let out a loud howl and tried to wipe away the tears.
"You should have known that, you're fifteen."
Cordelia just rocked back and forth and shook her head in disbelief.
Lilly King wasn't the most affectionate of mothers. Didn't care for a bunch of hugging and kissing, but in that moment, she looked at Cordelia as a budding woman. She was determined to give her daughter what her mother hadn't given her. She kissed her daughter on the forehead and patted her on the knee, "get up and take a shower. Get some of the blood off, you need to get to the doctor." Then she walked back out the bathroom.
Jersey and Angel had abandoned the stove and were standing at the bathroom door. They made futile attempts to run back into the kitchen, but their feet never moved when Lilly came out.
"Ma, is she okay?" Jersey managed.
“Yes, she's fine. Go get her coat," she said to Jersey. "Angel you go help her get dressed." Lilly walked into her bedroom, and was just about to close her bedroom door when she came back out of her room in a rush, "Don't yah go telling nobody about this. You hear me. You hear me," she repeated.
She stood at the door until she got affirmative remarks from Jersey and Angel. Lilly closed her bedroom door in disbelief. She still wore her uniform, although she’d been home since noon. Most Saturday’s she worked till noon, but she was thinking, there was a Saturday when she came home early from work. That Saturday the girls were out. And it was that same Saturday she spotted Cordelia and Brock walking down the street. From a distance, they appeared to be holding hands, but as they drew close to the building they separated themselves, they acted as if they weren't together. Lilly thought she had imagined what she saw.
Lilly was going to ask Cordelia, and had anticipated her daughter would come directly upstairs. But she never came. When Lilly peered her head out the front window, she saw no hair or hide of Cordelia or Brock. She walked outside into the hallway and peeked down the steps. No Cordelia. No Brock. She suspected they could have been in the basement, but that couldn’t have been the case, Cordelia was too much of a good girl. She was smart in school, had been a straight A student, had never given Lilly even a single moments trouble. So that Saturday night, when Lilly heard the phone ring she went back into her apartment, closed the door, answered the phone and never thought about it again, until she saw all that blood.
She wanted to kick herself. She should have followed her instincts and gone to the basement. She would have caught them. But, unfortunately, she wasn’t going to always be able to protect her children. Lilly moved about the room quickly, changing her clothes. She knew Cordelia needed to learn for herself and going down into that basement would have only delayed the inevitable.
“Mom,” Jersey called with a knock on the door.
"Yeah, come in Jersey."
“Is everything okay with Cordelia. There’s blood all over the place.”
“Yes, she's fine. Are you having sex?”
Jersey looked at her mother with a surprised expression, and shrugged her shoulders. She was the spit image of her grandmother, only prettier and firmer--all her daughters were--pretty and firm. It was then Lilly realized she had three beautiful daughters, and men were going to go after them. Lilly shook her head, she didn't want Jersey to answer the question, it was too much at one time. That's a subject for tomorrow. “We need to get Delia to the hospital. I need you to go call 911 and have an ambulance come.”
“Ok, Mom. I’ll call.”
“Don’t worry Jersey," Lilly said, feeling as if once again, she needed to show her daughter motherly affection, "Delia gonna be just fine."
As Lilly spoke she gathered her Medicaid card and other important documents from her wallet, and finished changing into jeans and a shirt. Before she returned to the bathroom she grabbed a handful of towels out the hall closet, and a few plastic bags from the kitchen. She knew she should have been prepared for something like this and she was a little disappointment that she wasn't, but she was determined to fix the situation.
“You think I need to go to the doctor?” Cordelia asked, when Lilly returned to the bathroom. There was fear in Cordelia's round eyes, the whites of which were red from all the tears.
Angel was helping Cordelia put on her shoes and socks. Lilly walked around her and went to the toilet.
“Yes, you have to go to the doctor,” Lilly said. She peered inside the bowl at the mound as she listened to Angel reassure Cordelia.
“Things going to be just fine,” Angel repeated.
Lilly continued to stare at the mound. It would have been her first grandchild, she was thinking this very thing when she put her hands inside the bowl. She carefully retrieved the creature as if it was a newborn baby, and placed it inside the towel. She noticed both Cordelia and Angel were watching with tears falling.
“Jersey,” Lilly called, “is the ambulance on the way?”
Jersey came to the door and stood next to Lilly. Lilly rarely worried about, she wasn’t the type to cry. Even if she felt like bursting into tears, she wouldn't. Instead Jersey knelt and assisted Lilly with the moving of the package.
“Yes, they’re on the way."
Angel and Cordelia left the bathroom as Lilly and Jersey cleaned up the mess. Lilly emerged first from the bathroom and put her coat over her shoulders. She instructed Jersey and Angel to keep an eye on Damon once the ambulance arrived.
After asking Cordelia an array of questions the medics whisked her away on a stretcher.
~~~~~~
Angel turned the music up so loud you could feel the vibrations of the beat, “How appropriate," She shouted lifting her glass of wine. Lauren Hill and Mary J blasted on Pandora, it was one of her favorite songs. "It's amazing the way we turned out, when you think about all the mistakes we made," Angel said over the music.
"That's the truth," Jersey said moving to the beat of the music.
“I used to love him,” Cordelia sang...
“But now I don’t...don't...don't....don't," they all sang in unison.
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